Barbecuing for friends and family is always fun especially when you have your trusty dog and he is willing to help you with any scraps. The mid-week festivities threw me for a loop where I had to pre-cook all of my meat the weekend prior to the Fourth. The pulled pork sandwiches were the hands-down winner. I also made a batch for the peeps at work and they seemed to enjoy as well. There were even a couple of vegetarians who crossed over, just for the day. The ribs were good, but didn’t fare nearly as well as the pulled pork. Those butts are pretty indestructible.
One thing that I did notice is that we cooked way too much food. Perhaps we’ll plan better next year, but BBQ is one of those things where you can’t just put one rack of ribs in the smoker. Might as well fill the thing if you’re going to cook anything at all.
I didn’t take as many photos as I would have liked to have taken. But you can check out my photo set by clicking here.
This year the 4th falls on a Wednesday, which sucks because I only get one day off for the holiday. I like having an extra day before to prepare and start to cook my BBQ. Our menu will usually consist of BBQ pulled pork sandwiches for lunch. These are great because I cook the pork overnight in my smoker and they are ready to eat as people arrive. The ribs I like to do the day of so that guests can enjoy them with the rest of the meal.
This year things are a little different and I had to pre-cook all of my meat. This is a pain because I like cooking on that day, but BBQ takes time and this year I have none. It also means that I am going to have to reheat all of my meat, hopefully it wont be overcooked.
I would like to hear about what is on your menu for the Fourth, post a comment and let me know.
The CBBQA (California BBQ Association) website has been updated. YES! And, it runs so much faster than it did before. There is a forum, which I am falling in love with all over again, and an all-new BBQ wiki. Check out the site, post a comment, ask a question, make a friend and have some fun.
Not only 1st place ribs, but we also placed 5th in BBQ brisket at this weekends Go For The Gold BBQ Competition. YAY Four Q! I believe that the brisket we turned in was the best that our team had done, I wish that we had gotten first place. Oh well, I had the opportunity to sample the 3rd and 4th place brisket, and they were absolutely delicious as well. Professor Salt definitely rocked the house with the ribs, I feel partially responsible because he was using my WSM water pan. Now I will be able to tell my grandchildren that the water pan in my smoker once achieved greatness. The chicken, well lets just say the my water pan was busy doing other things… the same goes for the pork.
Congrats to all of the other teams who participated. As usual, it was great kicking it with all of y’all.
We, Four Q BBQ Team, will be participating in the Go For The Gold BBQ Championship this weekend. I really don’t know too much about what else is going on at this event aside from there being some food vendors and such. It’s at the San Bernardino County Fair Grounds out in Victorville, CA. If you happen to be there stop by and say hi.
I was getting some questions about the KTLA segment where we showed bagels being cooked in a BBQ pit. The long story short, Professor Salt used the WSM (smoker) as an oven. He’s been working on the perfect bagel recipe… I thinks he’s pretty close. I caught him on film (sd card) talking about his wonderful little bagels. Or if you’re more curious about his bagels and methodology you can read all about it here.
Here’s a close-up of what these babies looked like.
Set your TiVo because it looks like another competition BBQ show has just started on the Versus TV (DirecTV #608). Here is the description:
Presented by Kingsford Charcoal, this competitive bracket-series tournament features the world’s top BBQ chefs vying for $100,000 in prize money – the biggest in ‘cue history. The meats have been marinated; the cookers fired and stoked. Watch as the best pit men in the country line up ready to do battle, apron to apron. But before they can take home the prize, they must face the gamut of judges – the Taste Makers and Breakers – with a celebrity judge or two to spice things up. The torturous scrutiny begins this fall on Versus. Viewers will have an eye-opening experience as they witness survival in the BBQ pits.
We’ll the Autry is over and we didn’t place. It doesn’t matter too much because we had a great time cooking, chatting, meeting new peeps and just hanging out with other BBQ enthusiasts. Remember it’s not how you play the game… yada, yada, yada.
Congrats to the winners and all who participated, it was a fun event. If you want to see more photos from this event check out my Flickr photoset here.
Just a reminder that this Saturday Four Q BBQ Team, comprised of four SoCal food bloggers, will be competing at the Autry BBQ competition. Also, if you happen to watch KTLA morning news, Gayle Anderson will be doing a report on this competition and a few of the teams that are there (which just by chance may include Four Q). So be sure and check it out.
One last thing, check out Four Q’s new website that now has been updated to include photos and links.
Hope to see y’all this weekend.
Peace out.
UPDATE:
In case you missed us this morning cooking BBQ on KTLA, you can see video on their website:
Click here to open the webpage then click on the button that says “Gayle Anderson”
Here is a screen grab of our BBQ team courtesy of Rob Lowe (not the actor).
The second annual BBQ’n at the Autry Barbecue Championship and Festival is right around the corner, April 14 2007. It will be held at the Autry National Center in Griffith Park (4700 Western Heritage Way).It is a very special competition to the Four-Q BBQ Team and myself because it was our inauguration into the world of BBQ competition. There were a couple of local BBQ events that were canceled last year and it’s nice to see that this one is coming back.
There will be cooking demonstrations, food booths, entertainment, arts and crafts (for the kids), and a whole bunch of other stuff. There is one difference from last year aside from our team having a year of experience under our belts; they are charging an admission fee ($9 adults, $7 students and senior 62+, $3 children 3-12, free for children under 2, and free parking). If you are planning on attending, come early to see the competitors get their entries ready… it’s just like on TV. I will update this post if more information becomes available.
Here’s a close-up of what these babies looked like.
